Top Secret Tales of World War II [Hardcover]

William B. Breuer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2000

Critical Acclaim for TOP SECRET TALES of World War II

"A book for rainy days and long solitary nights by the fire. If there were a genre for cozy nonfiction, this would be the template."-Publishers Weekly

"Perfect for the curious and adventure readers and those who love exotic tales and especially history buffs who will be surprised at what they didn't know. Recommended for nearly everyone."-Kirkus Reviews

This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct.

In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage-in all its forms-as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you'll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations, and bribes and blackmailing-with frequently startling revelations about the secret wars behind both the battlefields and the headlines.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As evidenced time and again by the prolific Breuer (Hoodwinking Hitler, etc.), WWII continues to be a source of absorbing espionage tales. Springboarding off two of his previous works dealing with unexplained mysteries and undercover tales from the war, Breuer now plumbs his personal archives, official sources and the memories of aging veterans to produce these 75 accounts of intrigue--short-shorts all--with tantalizing titles like "Global Celebrity a Secret Agent" and "The Blond Beast's Ruse Backfires." The narratives offer quick and satisfying glimpses into a netherworld of secret agents, Nazis and duplicitous characters. In one vignette, President Roosevelt meets with the sultan of Morocco in Casablanca, where the American president is unaware that his every word will be transmitted to Adolf Hitler by the sultan, who is a Nazi spy. In another, the military tests a plan conceived by a Pennsylvania dentist to deploy an armada of common bats fitted with napalm bomblets to attack Tokyo. One of the more arresting tales is that of German agent Hermann Goertz, whose ill-fated attempts to set up shop undercover in Ireland earned him the nickname "War's Dumbest Spy." More fun than enlightening, this is a book for rainy days and long solitary nights by the fire. If there were a genre for cozy nonfiction, this would be the template. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Espionage, in all its forms, as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counter-intelligence is the basis for these fascinating and ultimately disturbing stories.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471353825
• ISBN-13: 978-0471353829
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,106,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Inaccurate and Boring, March 17, 2000

By 

J. Palmer "bizbooksetc" (Skillman, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Top Secret Tales of World War II (Hardcover)

None are top secret and some are inaccurate. This is a collection of short squibbs of just about everything you have already read about WW2. And in some cases author Breuer just gets its wrong: German magnetic mines, for example, were NOT as he says magnetic in the sense of being drawn the metallic mass of a nearby boat where they exploded on contact, but rather stationary and tethered and set off by the passing of a nearby magnetic field (when they worked, that is, which wasn't often). Worse, perhaps, the writing is on par with a 6th grader: one small section (the two pages of magnetic mines) calls these things "fiendish devices" and "infernal devices" within paragraphs. If you want to read good non-fiction on war, dump this and turn to John Keegan!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Look Elsewhere, April 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Top Secret Tales of World War II (Hardcover)

This work is a mildly interesting collection of semi-familiar "tales." It is so poorly written that it reads like a first draft. Where was the editor?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars useless pap, June 1, 2009

By 

Konrad Baumeister - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Top Secret Tales of World War II (Hardcover)

Like so many of Breuer's other 'books,' this is what amounts to a collection of press clippings, often inaccurate, always repetitive, never informative, occasionally contradictory, invariably poorly written and generally dull. No reader with the most rudimentary knowledge of the European Theater of WWII could be unfamiliar with any of this, and most of them would have done a far better job of compiling these short chapters and jamming them between two covers.

The Roehm purge was 'one of the bloodiest purges that European history had ever known' (about 1000 dead is a lot, but European history is replete with far, far greater massacres); the population of pre-war Germany is quoted at 80 million and at 90 million within 5 pages of one another; "Mynheer" is a Dutch title, not a Christian name as repeatedly asserted regarding the proprietor of the Hotel du Levrier in Maastricht; "Herrenvolk" does NOT directly translate to "German people;" the German garrison in Denmark was only the tiniest fraction of Breuer's quote of 200,000 (!!!); etc etc et multiple cetera. Breuer's prose, to add to the torture, is so awful one wonders who if anyone edited the ms; we are told of "dark, stormy" nights (really!), "booted legions" (did the Allies troops wear sandals?), "fiendish" plots (no doubt Fu Manchu behind them), and the like. Please.

This stuff is awful. Buy any other book on WWII and be glad you dodged this bullet.